6 Things to do at Comic-Con

With Comic-Con coming up, thousands of geeks will soon descend upon San Diego, indulging in all of their geeky appetites for games, movies, comics, and tv. It can be a little overwhelming, if you’ve never been, with dozens of great panels competing for your attention with an almost mile-long show floor, and plenty of great, wonderfully geek-infested bars and restaurants. Fortunately, I’ve compiled this handy guide to 6 things I recommend doing at Comic-Con, although I’ve left off ‘hook up with cute guy/girl dressed as a supehero,’ because hey, that’s a given.

Find a screening

I’m still laden with guilt over the time, several years ago, that me and some friends conned our ways further up the line for a screening of Tropic Thunder, thus causing some folks who got there before us to not get in. Was this awful of us? Probably. Was it worth it? Definitely. The thrill of getting to not only see a movie before it’s out, but to see it in a theater full of fellow fans just as excited as you, is one of my favorite things about the convention.

Getting tickets to these things can be a stroke of luck, but if you keep an eagle-eyed look out for folks handing out passes on the show floor, you should just take them, and hope it’s for something awesome. They generally hand out more tickets than there are seats, but it’s worth waiting in line a bit to see something awesome, not to mention the bragging rights.

This year the rumor is that there will be a screening of Rian Johnson’s Looper, which I’m so excited for that I will literally fight somebody for tickets. What worries me more, though, is that Dark Knight Rises comes out the week after the con, and if they hand out tickets for there, there’s going to be a full-on riot.